Recapping The Best Stories Of 2017 From LSX Magazine

It’s hard to believe 2018 is almost upon us. 2017 was a big year for a lot of reasons and will likely represent one of the most iconic years for Chevrolet ever. The ZL1 1LE made its debut back in February and the new King of the Hill took its first bow just last month. These cars will likely be instant collector cars and your children will probably ask you where you were when you first heard about them.

Since 2017 has been such a rollercoaster, and with 2018 on the horizon, we thought it would be a good time to look back and reflect on some of our biggest stories of the year. From the ZL1 1LE to new stock bottom end LS records, there has been a lot of ground-breaking news to cover. And as always, we’ve been hard at work making sure you hear that news here first.

The fastest, most powerful production Corvette ever – the 755-horsepower 2019 ZR1.

With that said, we’re always working hard to bring you the content you want to see. Our goal at LSX Magazine is to bring you stories that not only inspire you on your own builds, but to provide you with the technical insight, manufacturer expertise, and testing that help make your build the best it can be. So, without further ado, lets take a look at our most viewed stories of 2017.

Coming in at number 1 on our list of most-read stories of 2017 was our first peek at the 2017 Trans Am 455 Super Duty from the guys over at Trans Am Worldwide. We took a closer look at it at this year’s SEMA show and it does not disappoint. With a limited run of just 50 examples, the 455 SD is one of the baddest “new” Trans Ams in existence.

Imbued with a Magnuson supercharger, and stroked and poked to displace 455 cubic inches, the 455 produces north of 1,000 horsepower making it one of the most potent pony cars/muscle cars on the market and the Demon green with envy. Its easy to see why you guys enjoyed this one so much as we did too. This one will be hard to top in 2018 but we’re up to the challenge.

Unsurprisingly, our next story has to do with the new King of the Hill, the C7 ZR1. This just may have been the most highly anticipated Corvette of all time. We caught a lot of glimpses of the car for what seems like an eternity but when it finally landed it was big news.

With its 2,650cc supercharger, the ZR1 bowed with 755 horsepower and took the world by storm. There is a lot of technology packed into the LT5 that we can’t wait to get our hands on in 2018, but in the mean time we’re just appreciating the breath-taking design of the C7 ZR1.

Hopefully we will get our hands on one for some testing in the coming months, so stay tuned for that.

Stock bottom end LS performance is one of our favorite topics, and it turns out yours too. We were shocked when Jon Capizzi took a stock bottom end 5.3, stuffed in a Fox body, to an astonishing 7.81-second pass. Not only was it the first SBE car into the 7s, it stood as the record for the fastest for a while–at least until he beat it again with a 7.72-second pass.

While the record was later bested by Team North with a 7.16 on a SBE 5.3, they accomplished this in a Pro Mod chassis. While it is definitely the record in our eyes, there’s just something a little bit cooler about doing it with a chassis that rolled off a factory line. We’re told that we haven’t heard the last of Team North or Jon and they will both be pushing the boundaries of stock bottom end LS performance in the coming year.

As we mentioned before, the ZL1 1LE made headlines throughout the year with its insane bang-for-the-buck performance. We were there for the debut of the flagship Camaro at the 2017 Daytona 500 but even then we didn’t realize it would be as fast as it ended up being.

Naturally, it was big news when it was announced that the ZL1 1LE laid down a blistering 7:16.04 around the Green Hell, putting all but the most capable hypercars on notice. It still stands as the 15th fastest production vehicle to ever lap the Nordschleife and will likely go down in history as one of the most capable Camaros ever.

However, we’ve yet to see a Z/28 model of GM’s latest pony car and we could possibly see that in 2018. Will it have the LT5, or will it be stuffed with one of the rumored new dual overhead cam V8s destined for the mid-engine Corvette? Will they even make one? Only time will tell, but if we had to venture a guess, we’d say it’s on the way.

While this is the only story on our list to not be authored in 2017, we felt it was still worth mentioning. This article takes you through every component in the LS3 and shows you at what power level they should be upgraded. Though we know LS3s have been pushed well passed the limits outlined in the story, our recommendations are made with relative safety margins in mind.

Regardless, the LS3 is a potent mill that doesn’t need much help below the 600 horsepower mark. Above that is where you will want to consider more modifications to make sure your LS3 lives a long happy life under pressure.

Happy New Year Ya Filthy Animals

That wraps up our recap of the most read stories of 2017. If there’s one you enjoyed that we missed, let us know in the comments below. We have a lot of new great content coming your way for 2018 and more than just a few surprises that we think you guys will enjoy. Thanks for making us the most read late-model GM performance magazine in the world and, in case you haven’t heard, LSX Magazine is getting a print edition this upcoming year!

Horsepower Wars is also coming your way in 2018 and LSX Magazine will be heavily involved in both the $10K Drag Shootout and Pony Wars, where we pit a 2018 Mustang and Camaro head-to-head to see which performs best with both $5k and $15K worth of mod. Don’t miss out and keep it tuned right here.

About the author

Chase Christensen

Chase Christensen hails from Salt Lake City, and grew up around high-performance GM vehicles. He took possession of his very first F-body— an ’86 Trans Am— at the age of 13 and has been wrenching ever since.